r little Belgium last year 7,500 f.

Perhaps it need hardly be explained that the system of special effort
and special begging near the entrance to railway stations, and in all
the most prominent places of the cities, which has grown out of this
week, with the approval of Governments and Press everywhere, has done
more than any one could have dreamt of to increase interest in the needs
of others, and holiness and self-denial in attending to them.

And it is, after all, upon that development of practical love for
everybody that The Army's finance depends.

Merely to have interested so many rich people in The Army might have
been a great credit to The General's influence, but to have raised up
everywhere forces of voluntary mendicants who, at any rate, for weeks at
a time are not ashamed to be seen begging in the streets for the good of
people they have never seen, is an achievement simply boundless in its
beneficent value to all mankind, and limitless in the guarantee it
provides for the permanent maintenance and extension of our work.

Do let me beg you to realise a little of the intense interest taken in
our finances locally by all our Soldiers. Did you ever get to know one
of our Corps Treasurers? If not, believe me, that your education is
incomplete. Whether he or she be schoolmistress in the mining village of
Undergroundby, shopkeeper in Birmingham, or cashier of a London or
Parisian bank, you will find an experienced Salvation Army Treasurer
generally one of the most fully-developed intelligences living. He or
she could easily surpass Judas Iscariot himself, either for ability at
bargaining, or for what we call "Salvation cheek." He considers the Duke
who owns most of his county, or the Mayor of the city, is "duty bound"
to help The Army whenever its Officer thinks a fitting moment has come
to him to ask them to do so--and the Treasurer never thinks that they
already have helped us enough.

Every farthing his Corps has received or paid, for years past, has
passed through his careful fingers. In any city Corps I would accept his
judgment about a "doubtful" coin before that of almost any one. And no
human being could surpass him in eagerness or care to get the very
uttermost possible value for every penny spent. Hours after great
Meetings are over you may find him with other officers busy still
parcelling coppers, or in some other way "serving tables." His own
business or family would very often suffer for his la